One of my early movie memories is from a scene in Superman 3. At the end of the movie Lex Luther builds a huge super computer with the help of Richard Prior in order to defeat superman. Of course his plan fails but not before the gigantic computer pulls one of Lex's own people into itself (it also tries to do the same to Superman). It starts to take them over, wrapping wires around their body and fixing computer parts to their skin until they become a deadly robot under its control. I remember the sequence well because while the scene fascinated me it also scared the life out of me. The scene is probably quite tame compared to the horrific images I remember but at the time it was terrifying to think a computer could do such a thing.
As I grew older I realized the chances of this human body hijack actually happening in real life were quite low (as were my chances of ever meeting Superman) and computers would never be that advanced. Whenever I wanted to play Dig-Dug my Dad had to type in lines of code on the family Acorn computer. At the time I could never imagine a computer being as powerful as in the movie but of course technology got more advanced. A few years later I had to spend hours swapping floppy disks on my Amiga to play Maniac Mansion. Another couple of years later I had to twiddle my thumbs while my 58k modem connected to the servers to play Jedi Knight: Dark Forces. In a few years time maybe I’ll be downloading World of Warcraft directly into my brain but for now I have to settle for what I have… which is still a lot.
Between my flat mate and myself we have more bandwidth then the average Borg Cube, more processing power then the Death Star, more RAM then the Tradis and more Hard Drive space than The Matrix. Every device in the house is connected. All the computers, laptops, PSPs, PDAs and so on that we have are all connected via wire or wireless technology. If you can stream it, encrypt it, network it, transmit it, zip it, print it, code it I can now do it and more.
This also means I can access the internet and any of my files from almost any where. Last weekends post was written from the comfort of my balcony while enjoying the sun and streaming music from my computer inside the house (I also added a reader’s map to this blog for fun). I can even log onto my home computer from work.
Of course this is all great but who knows what might happen with that amount of technology networked together. One day they might unexpectedly form a self aware conscience. Maybe it has already started. I might wake up one morning to find myself cocooned in wires like the scene from Superman 3 as the combined computer power puts its plan for world domination into motion. The Cybergeddon. The day humans become slaves to computers.
It’s probably best if I never download Superman 3 and give it ideas.
As I grew older I realized the chances of this human body hijack actually happening in real life were quite low (as were my chances of ever meeting Superman) and computers would never be that advanced. Whenever I wanted to play Dig-Dug my Dad had to type in lines of code on the family Acorn computer. At the time I could never imagine a computer being as powerful as in the movie but of course technology got more advanced. A few years later I had to spend hours swapping floppy disks on my Amiga to play Maniac Mansion. Another couple of years later I had to twiddle my thumbs while my 58k modem connected to the servers to play Jedi Knight: Dark Forces. In a few years time maybe I’ll be downloading World of Warcraft directly into my brain but for now I have to settle for what I have… which is still a lot.
Between my flat mate and myself we have more bandwidth then the average Borg Cube, more processing power then the Death Star, more RAM then the Tradis and more Hard Drive space than The Matrix. Every device in the house is connected. All the computers, laptops, PSPs, PDAs and so on that we have are all connected via wire or wireless technology. If you can stream it, encrypt it, network it, transmit it, zip it, print it, code it I can now do it and more.
This also means I can access the internet and any of my files from almost any where. Last weekends post was written from the comfort of my balcony while enjoying the sun and streaming music from my computer inside the house (I also added a reader’s map to this blog for fun). I can even log onto my home computer from work.
Of course this is all great but who knows what might happen with that amount of technology networked together. One day they might unexpectedly form a self aware conscience. Maybe it has already started. I might wake up one morning to find myself cocooned in wires like the scene from Superman 3 as the combined computer power puts its plan for world domination into motion. The Cybergeddon. The day humans become slaves to computers.
It’s probably best if I never download Superman 3 and give it ideas.
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